Why Immigrants Are Not America's Secret Weapon

Open Culture has Michio Kaku on immigrants as the lone remaining engine for STEM in America:

The fact is that the U.S. might be a dynamo for capital but not when it comes to what economists crudely call “human capital.” The point applies not only to immigrant workers who do jobs Americans won’t, but also those who do jobs Americans can’t, because, as physicist Michio Kaku argues above, “the United States has the worst educational system known to science.” Were it solely up to U.S. graduates, the scientific establishment and tech economy would collapse, he says, “forget about Google, forget about Silicon Valley. There would be no Silicon Valley.” Instead, U.S. science and tech thrive because of immigrants who come on H-1B visas, “America’s secret weapon… the genius visa.

Just in case you happen to be a leftist, let me explain this as if it is food related- this is unsustainable. What's more, it is destructive of what is local.

I do believe the American education system is terrible, but probably for reasons different from Kaku. Higher education in America is diversity central, and since it has Cathedral consistent goals, it cannot fulfill it's true goal. It is an indoctrination center, a jobs program for leftists, not a place for education or advancing knowledge.

I figured out I had some aptitude for math in a remedial Algebra class in college. It was a course done on the computer, so I was able to go my own pace. I went very fast, and caused some disbelief in my professor.

I was also rather lazy, and didn't really know what I would do with a math degree, or an engineering degree, etc... I liked history so I went with that. This was foolish.

Since I've been a libertarian for so long, I know the reality that their positions are mostly irrelevant. Not necessarily wrong, mind you, but the people in charge invariably seem to desire some control over me for some reason or another. So, I can tell those of you who aren't irrelevant, you waste assets. Among the assets you waste, there is me. Yes, I made poor choices, but so did you.

It took a while for me to realize how much of a waste this sort of thing is. Egalitarianism tends to exist in the minds of relatively intelligent people because there is this persistent sense that if I just tried hard enough, I could do it. This world view comes out of not having intelligence as the limiter, but discipline. If I don't become proficient in reading Japanese, it will because I got lazy and stopped trying. But this is not normal for most people. For most people intelligence is the limiter.

So, America is throwing away assets. They spend money trying to get young girls into STEM, despite clear evidence that they hit puberty and lose interest in STEM. They don't spend money on finding people with the right aptitude and providing the right incentives.

What are immigrants? Part of the fuel mixture that they are burning up what remains of the economy. Yes, this means the immigrants are being burnt up too. They are lured out of their own culture and forced to deal with the insanity in this country. The H-1B visas mean, having already ruined your human capital at home, you are now going to psychologically damage foreigners. If they do manage to start a family here, in one or two generations their descendants will be making the same stupid mistakes I made in college.

H-1B visas simply spread to the world the illness America has already got. It is a short-sighted 'solution' to immediate needs of a particular corporation or industry, but doesn't solve the long term destruction.